City on Fire

She doesn’t know what to do. What she can do.

“Look at the torch!” the first cop says. “Sabotage!” He kicks the oxy cylinder with a steel-capped toe. “ID, all of you!”

His mates cover Aiah’s party with their weapons while the first cop edges out onto the catwalk behind them and begins patting down Davath. He finds the man’s ID card, looks at it in the light of his torch. “Plasm Bureau, all right. But I haven’t heard the Bureau’s on our side.” He produces a pair of handcuffs. “Put your right hand behind your back,” he says.

And then Davath moves. The huge gray body spins out of the line of fire and both hands reach out, seizing the first policeman high and low. The man gives a yelp as Davath’s big hand crushes his groin. Holding the first policeman’s body by crotch and collar, Davath charges the other two police, using their comrade as a shield.

There is a half-second’s hesitation and then guns bark out. Flashes light the huge artificial cavern. Sound hammers Aiah’s ears and she throws herself down, falling across Prestley’s legs, seawater splashing her as she sprawls on the catwalk. Over the sound of her thudding heart she hears shots, screams, and splashes; and then desperate shrieks for help.

“No! Don’t—.’” And then a horrid, crunching thud. And another. Screams. More thuds. A strange rushing sound, like an underground river. Hollow-sounding screeches that can come from no human throat.

Aiah dares to raise her eyes, sees Davath’s huge form looming against the light of police torches, an upraised gas cylinder in his hands. A desperate scream rings out. Davath brings the cylinder down, and there is a squelching thud, and the scream is cut off. Davath tries to raise the cylinder again, but instead sags against the concrete wall.

Prestley scrambles to his feet, boot-soles kicking Aiah in the face, and rushes past Davath to kneel atop the sprawled policemen. Aiah can hear him panting for breath as he makes a frantic search. One of the police whimpers. The strange rushing sound continues. The air is full of grating chirps. Prestley finds what he’s looking for and rises. Aiah can see the outline of a gun against the light of the open hatch. The cop whimpers again.

Don’t! But the words never get past Aiah’s lips, because her breath is just gone, gone. She may never breathe again.

The pistol booms once, twice, thrice. And then Prestley turns to Davath just as the big gray man finally falls, and supports Davath’s great weight until he can be lowered to the catwalk.

Aiah blinks eyes dazzled by gunshots. She forces herself to take a breath—the most welcome she’s ever tasted—and rises unsteadily to her feet. She has to hold on to the concrete wall for a moment or two because her knees have gone to rubber, and then she edges toward the sprawled bodies.

Davath lies bleeding, half-supported by Prestley. The police fired right through their comrade in order to hit him, but he still had enough strength to knock them down and beat them to a pulp with the acetylene cylinder.

“Senko, Senko, oh hell,” Prestley swears. Aiah pats herself, wondering if she’s got a handkerchief or something to stop Davath’s bleeding. Something black darts through the beam of her helmet light and she looks up to see a river of bats overhead, startled by the gunshots, thousands of gray bodies flashing in the light as they flood past. Their strange chirping grates on Aiah’s ears.

She kneels by Davath, presses her hands to the chest wounds. A gunshot has taken off most of his left ear, splashing his face with blood, and another has drilled him through the right hand, but most of the wounds seem to be at the center of body mass. Davath’s yellow eyes regard her with a strange tranquillity as she searches the front of his jumpsuit.

Three shots, she thinks, maybe four; it’s hard to tell in the dark. One of them whistles ominously with Davath’s every breath, and Aiah presses her palm over it to stop the noise. His gray skin is turning milky. “See if the cops have first-aid gear,” she says.

The cops do. Just disinfectant and gauze and some patches, but it’s better than nothing, and it stops the oozing from Davath’s wounds, not to mention the whistling noise.

Davath, beyond speech, takes Aiah’s hand and kisses it with chill lips. Tears sting her eyes at the gesture.

She looks at the plasm main running over their heads. If only she had some way to tap the vast store of power, she could make some attempt to repair Davath—but she doesn’t have the hardware, or the medical skill.

“What do we do now?” Prestley asks.

“We can’t carry him all the way back,” Aiah says. “So Fll stay here and you’ll have to run back and bring up the boat.”

“I don’t know how to get here by water.”

She looks at him, heat flashing through her. “Find a way, damn it!”

His eyes widen. “Sorry,” he says. “But it may take a while.”

Regret chases the anger through her mind. “Sorry I shouted,” she says. “Ethemark will return soon. I’ll have him fetch you here.”

“Good.”

“Give me the gun. I may need it.”

He looks at the gun he’s stuck in his waistband, then turns to bring a fresh weapon from one of the dead cops. He puts it in her hand and it’s surprisingly heavy, surprisingly awkward, surprisingly gunlike. She licks her lips. “How do I work it?”

Prestley’s expression is unreadable in the dark. “Hold it like this. Press your thumb here to take the safety off, then press the trigger. You’ll have seven shots or so.”

“It’s that easy?”

“Shooting it, yes. Do you want me to show you how to reload?”

Aiah shakes her head. “No time. Get the boat here now.” She doesn’t see herself as a gunfighter anyway. “Stay with us, man.” Prestley gives Davath’s shoulder a squeeze, and then scrambles away down the catwalk.

Aiah waits in the dark, her heartbeat marking time.

Davath’s massive trunk leans against hers, his head on her shoulder. Wounded, his massive stoneface frame useless, he seems to become more human with every drop of blood that oozes from his body. His hoarse breathing moistens the corner of her neck and shoulder. Her arms are around him, hands clasping the gun. She points the gun at the open hatch, wondering if anyone will miss the three cops, if police reinforcements will arrive.

And then her heart leaps at the sound of a massive crash. The concrete wall next to her seems to leap as well. Rust particles flake down in the beam of her headlamp like falling snow. Another crash follows, then another.

A battle is being fought nearby, perhaps right overhead. She tries to decide whether she should cut Xurcal Station’s power or not, and eventually decides that if a battle is being fought, she should cut off as much of the enemy’s power as she can.

As gently as she can, she moves Davath so that he leans against the concrete wall, then rises to inspect the plasm junction. She reaches for the control box, moves the rotator to the neutral position, takes the fuse box from the controller, and throws it in the sea. She takes a hammer from Davath’s belt and beats the control box into fragments, then waits, the hammer in her hand, as she catches her breath.

She doesn’t know how to use the welding torch, so she can’t do any more damage. She puts the hammer down, picks up the gun, and sits by Davath again. She puts her arms around him, then waits.

A few minutes later, Davath’s death rattle begins. She rests her head on his shoulder. Blood stains her cheek, then tears. A few bats circle hopelessly overhead, looking for safety. Explosions send rust and dust drifting down onto the sprawled humans, living and dead. She brushes it from Davath’s face. His skin is clammy and cold.

—Aiah! Vida’s mercy! What’s happened here!

Primal rage coils around Aiah’s heart.

—Ethemark! Where were you?

—There’s a mage battle going on upstairs. Someone kept cutting my sourceline. I’ve been trying to get back here and—

—Davath’s been shot. Prestley’s gone back for the boat.

—The police? Are they dead?

—Yes.